


The Arc of a Love Affair

by Imogen_Penn



Series: Hearts and Bones [2]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (2012), Thor (Movies)
Genre: F/M, Feelings, Fluff, Fluff and Smut, Shameless Smut
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-27
Updated: 2013-10-03
Packaged: 2017-12-21 11:48:38
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 18,060
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/899965
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Imogen_Penn/pseuds/Imogen_Penn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>These events may have had some effect<br/>On the man with the girl by his side<br/>The arc of a love affair<br/>His hands rolling down her hair<br/>Love like lightning shaking till it moans<br/>Hearts and bones<br/>- Paul Simon (Hearts and Bones)</p><p>A series of moments marking the way that two people move from each one to <i>we</i>. Follow up to A Fighter by his Trade.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Day One

**Author's Note:**

> This is a direct follow up the a Fighter by his Trade and it picks up immediately after that one left off. So it probably wont make too much sense if you haven't read that one. Your comments and kudos literally fill me up with so much joy. Every single one is appreciated more than you imagine! All my love to katertots for the once-over and the cheerleading. Actually, why are you even reading this. Go read her stuff!

They hadn’t really discussed it, but other than Darcy’s phone call to Karen and the expected follow up call from the Major (who immediately and loudly threatened to kill Steve if he ever hurt his little girl followed by an open invitation to any and all family events) they had kept their new relationship relatively quiet, for a few days at least.

They hadn’t discussed all that much, really. Generally their mouths had been otherwise occupied. Steve was pretty okay with that. He really didn’t think they had that long before the Avengers found out anyways, so they might as well take advantage of the peace and quiet.

He was mildly surprised, actually, that it was a full three days before Natasha sent him a text message reminding him to come up for air in time for team training that night and could he ask Darcy what time she and Jane would want coffee the next morning.

Steve tried momentarily to be offended by the insinuation, but then he looked at the clock and realised he only had about 15 minutes left to get a move on and he was lying naked in Darcy’s bed. He let out an amused snort at Natasha’s predictable accuracy and lack of tact.

Darcy rolled over from where she had been lazily flopped face down on the bed to give him a questioning look. Steve frowned momentarily as it meant his hand was dislodged from where it had been quite comfortably resting on the curve of her ass. But he made due by tucking his arm around her hip and pulling her close.

“Natasha wants to know when you want your coffee tomorrow,” said Steve with a wry grin.

“Oh, probably around 10 if she’s going to be coming by anyways, I….” she trailed off and Steve could _see_ the moment she understood.

“STEVE!!” she hit him in the chest, “Did you tell Tasha? Now she is going to give me a _look_!”

“Darce,” Steve said calmly, wrapping her hand in his, “It’s _Natasha_. You really think I would need to tell her?”

Darcy harrumphed but settled back against his arm without any further violence. He ran his fingers through the silky ends of her hair as she shifted around until she was comfortable. It was still amazing to him that he was _here_ right now. He looked down at the woman in his arms with a sense of wonderment and disbelief that even three days of spending every spare moment he could wrapped around her couldn’t shake.

“What do you mean a _look?_ ” he asked absently as he curled in towards her tracing the solid curve of her ribcage down to the flare of her hips.

“Oh, you know, the ‘don’t mess up my team Captain or I’ll kill you’ look,” Darcy sounded pretty distracted as she watched his fingers move across her belly and settle widespread across her pelvis. He grinned, both at how much he _loved_ the way she reacted to his touch and at her concern about Natasha.

“You know, she was really the one that put my head on straight about you.” He shifted his arms out from under her so he could brace himself on either side of her shoulders and roll over her.

“hmmmm?” she gave an absently questioning noise as her fingers tracked up his naked hips and came to rest on the small of his back, pulling him closer.

“She told me,” he paused, bending to kiss the line of her jaw, “that I should just man up and tell you how I felt, let the rest sort itself out.” He let her hands pull his hips flush against hers so she could be in no doubt of exactly what he was feeling for her at the moment. “I think it worked out okay.”

She let out an indecent little groan.

“You know,” Darcy said a little breathlessly as she canted her hips against his, drawing a sharp breath from him as he could feel her wet heat against his erection, “She also sent Clint to tell me I was being an idiot about the whole Captain America thing.”

“She’s a good friend,” Steve grinned down at Darcy with a calculating look, and then shifted and thrust into her in one swift motion. She was still slick from no more than 10 minutes ago when he had made her scream his name with his mouth on her clit, but Steve had expressed the thought yesterday that it was probably important for them to test the limits of his super-serum enhanced refractory period. You know, for science. _For science_ Darcy had agreed solemnly with a wicked glint in her eye. Steve had only been with a woman once after the serum, and that was wartime and it was rushed and ultimately not something he particularly liked dwelling on. So this was essentially his first real test run. They were both having a pretty good time figuring out what his body could do.

Darcy let out a cry of half surprise and half pleasure as her walls tightened around him. “We should probably thank her,” said Darcy after a moment with a playful grin as she stilled his hips with her hands.

“Darce,” Steve groaned in impatience, he only had 10 minutes until he was going to have to leave, and he wanted to see how many times he could make her go boneless underneath him, how many times he could make her see stars. It had very quickly become his favorite activity.

“It’s only polite,” she managed to keep an admirable level of control over her voice, Steve thought, as he thrust shallowly into her and ground down against her.

It may not have been his most well considered move, but he was under a lot of pressure, so he reached over, grabbed his phone and, pressing his mouth firmly against Darcy’s, he snapped a quick photo.

“Steve,” Darcy asked warily as he typed into the phone with one hand, still braced above her and moving slowly, “What are you….ungggg….doing?”

“Thanking Natasha,” he said, hitting send and then tossing aside the phone before turning back to her with a predatory grin, “What are _you_ doing.”

Darcy gave a long suffering sigh, the effect of which was completely ruined by the blissful grin on her face, “getting fucked into the mattress by the most incredible man of all time, I suppose.”

“Damn right,” Steve answered with a goofy grin before pulling her bottom lips between his teeth with a growl and moving his hips in earnest.

There wasn’t much talking after that.

+

+

“Agent Romanov, you said you were contacting Captain Rogers?” Coulson asked her, looking at the clock with a raised eyebrow.

Steve was now officially late.

Her phone pinged with a message and she held up on finger to Coulson as she checked the text.

It was, quite clearly, a photo of Steve and Darcy. By the angle of the arm across the side of the shot, she could tell that Steve had taken the photo and, while nothing was revealed, it was quite obvious that neither of them were wearing anything other than silly grins where their mouths were pressed together. The accompanying text said simply “thanks”.

She smirked. “Captain Rogers is going to be a bit late” she told Coulson.

“Any particular reason?” he asked in an arch tone.

“He’s currently debriefing a member of the science team, I believe.” She said calmly.

She heard Clint’s muffled choke of laughter across the room.

“I didn’t authorise any…” Coulson began sharply, and then sighed. “Agent Romanov, if you would be so kind as to notify me when he arrives…and be sure to tell Lewis not to let it happen again?”

+

+

It _may_ have been an error to show up to team training late and fairly obviously coming straight from a _lot_ of sex, but Steve took the good natured ribbing from his teammates with a grin, because he knew that Darcy would be waiting for him when he got home, so let ‘em say what they wanted.

Except Tony, Tony was going to have to _really_ quickly learn how to rein it in on the lewd comments about his girl.

At least they still had the gym though. Everyone there was just glad that the standoff between the two of them was over and they were back to, what hopefully on the surface looked like, their old friendship.

+

+

Darcy was going to have to take the blame for this one.

She happily placed the blame for the slew of text messages she had received from Clint, the one rather scary message from Natasha which read only “you made the right choice”(like maybe the wrong choice would have ended in her gruesome death) and the frantic accusatory phone call from Jane (“I _knew_ you were having sex!” “Jane, I swear, I _really_ wasn’t.” “So you’re not having sex with Steve? What the hell are you guys _doing_ with all your time?” “Well I’m obviously having sex with him _now_ ”) on Steve.

Although she didn’t much mind really, because Tony Stark had demanded to meet “the girl who captured the heart of Captain America,” and when Steve reluctantly brought her over to the tower for a team dinner, Stark had made a rude comment, she had torn him a new asshole, and Steve had given the table the biggest grin she had ever seen from him when he had his clothes on.

Plus, proving just how deeply strange Tony Stark was, he pronounced her acceptable. Bruce, who she had also met for the first time that evening, gave her a quirked little smile and told her that translated to “awesome”.

She didn’t really know how Ms. Potts (“please, call me Pepper”) handled it.

But this one was all on her.

To be fair, they were _both_ locked deep in the grip of the honeymoon phase where they could not keep their hands off each other. At least Darcy _hoped_ this was a honeymoon phase thing and not a super serum thing or something, because she was seriously getting _nothing_ done outside of work except Steve. Steve was getting done a lot. So was she, come to that. But there were bills that needed to be paid and plants that needed to be watered.

So she was feeling pretty positive about the fact that they made it to the gym at a reasonable hour that day. They dropped their hands at the door by mutual unspoken agreement that they would _never_ hear the end of it once Sal and Gus found out. And maybe that lulled her into a false sense of security, because when Steve came up behind her a little while later, his hair damp with sweat, smelling distinctly masculine, and put a hand on her hip, telling her to “watch your balance” but actually dipping his fingers under the waistband of her shorts, without thinking, she firmly pushed her ass back against him and said “Watch _your_ balance” with a smirk over her shoulder.

It was just plain bad luck that Gus was walking _right_ past them when she said it.

There was a moment where they all froze, Darcy’s ass against Steve’s crotch, Steve’s hands down the front of her shorts, and Gus’s mouth wide open in shock.

And then a shit eating grin spread across the older man’s face.

“hooooooooo boy!” he called out at the top of his lungs, “gentlemen, who had today in the pool, because the cat is outta the bag!”

Darcy was sure her face was beet red, and Steve dropped his to her neck where she could feel his shaking shoulders and huffing breath as he laughed.

“Guess the secret’s out” he whispered against her ear, “Might as well make the most of it?”

Darcy could get on board with that plan, so she rolled her eyes, “What, that?” she scoffed, “that was nothing!”

“Oh come on,” Gus said, “you’re not seriously going to try to tell me that…”

“I’ll show _you_ letting the cat out of the bag,” and she turned, latched her arms around Steve’s neck, and pulled him down so she could kiss him good and proper, her tongue flicking against the roof of his mouth. Steve, she knew, would never let her down, so she was not surprised when he hoisted her up by her hips so he could really get into it. The height difference, it turned out, really wasn’t a big deal when one of you was Captain America.

“Now _that_ was something!’ Sal hollered from across the gym. Rather predictably, pretty much everyone had stopped to watch.

Darcy noticed, with a little kick in her gut, that Lonny was there, looking like he had just been hit by a ton of bricks.

“Can you blame a guy?” Steve set her on her feet. “now can we all just go back to boxing ya bunch of old gossips,” he said with a grin.

“Sure,” Sal hollered at him, “Just no funny business in my gym!”

Steve rolled his eyes but took a step back from Darcy anyways, tossing Sal a little salute.

That definitely wasn’t going to be the end of it. Darcy could see the weeks of innuendo, pointed bits of “advice” and “I knew it all along” coming a mile away.

But she was currently more concerned with the way Lonny was marching determinedly out of the gym.

“Steve,” she said quietly, once everyone went back to their work, not that they weren’t being watched out of the corners of a gym full of eyes, “maybe you should go talk to Lonny?”

“What? Why?” Steve asked distractedly. He was smelling her hair again, she thought.

“Well, he kind of maybe had a little crush on me? And he absolutely _worships_ you, and maybe he’s a bit mixed up by our really tactless announcement?”

“He what?” Steve was focused sharply on her again, tense for a moment, but then he relaxed again, “Well, I suppose I can’t fault his taste in women,” he said with a rueful grin, “you really think I’m the one he wants to talk to?”

“Don’t think me being nice to him is going to do him any good at the moment, I guess,” she said awkwardly. She thought, maybe, that for a split second Steve had been really _not_ cool with the thought of another guy being interested in her. She wasn’t quite sure how to take that, but he was clearly not going to get all aggressive about it, so she supposed it was okay that the idea gave her a warm feeling right in the depths of her cave lady programming.

Steve sighed and pressed a kiss to her hair, “would you stop making guys fall in love with you?” he said resignedly as he unwrapped his hands.

“No promises,” she said with a smirk, but then leaned up to press a kiss against his jaw, “I can promise I won’t fall in love back though. Already found the very best one for that.”

He smiled, “well that’s alright then,” and then steeled himself. “Wish me luck?”

“Luck,” she gave his hand a squeeze before he walked out after Lonny.

+

+

Steve approached Lonny where he sat slumped over on the curb out front of the gym with more trepidation that some of the enemies he’d faced. He had plans to deal with that kind of stuff. He had _no_ experience dealing with this.

But, as he thought about it, he did have some experience being on Lonny’s side of the equation. He thought ruefully of his foolish teenaged self who fancied himself in love with one girl after another only to watch them waltz off with Bucky.

Bucky had been a lot more graceful about it than he was sure he was about to be.

“Hey,” he said tentatively as he approached.

“Go away Steve,” Lonny’s voice was muffled where it rested on his folded arms.

Steve’s heart broke for the kid. He knew what it felt like to lose a girl. He knew what it felt like to lose _Darcy_. It certainly wasn’t pleasant.

“Just want to make sure you’re okay,” he sat down on the curb a few feet away.

“I’m obviously doing _great_.” His voice was dripping with sarcasm.

“I’m real sorry Lonny,” he tried.

“Sorry that you and Darcy…?”

“No,” said Steve, a little too quickly, and he winced, but he could never be sorry about that. “Sorry that you…well, you know you’re like family kid. Neither of us wanted to see you hurt.”

“Yeah,” he agreed sullenly, “I know.”

“You know,” Steve continued carefully, “I’ve never been particularly good with women. And somehow things worked out okay for me. You’re already way ahead of where I was at your age. You got a lot of good stuff coming for you yet, yeah?”

“You think?” Lonny looked up at him, finally.

“Oh yeah,” said Steve with a grin, “mug like yours, and a fighters build? You’ll be turning ‘em away in droves in no time. Just…” he paused, trying to find the right words, “just hold out for the real thing though. Trust me on that one.”

Lonny managed a small grin. And then after a moment, “Hey Steve?”

“Yeah?”

“You hurt her, I’ll kill ya.”

“I never would,” said Steve seriously, although he couldn’t hid a bit of a grin when he said, “and you are more than welcome to whatever’s left of me when Darcy got through kicking my ass if I did.”

“Yeah,” said Lonny fondly, “she’d make you into paste.”

Steve grinned. “Come on,” he got to his feet, offering the kid a hand up.

He was gratified when Lonny took it without question.

+

+

Later, lying in bed, relating the conversation to Darcy, she got a fond soft expression on her face and said “You’re really great with that kid, you know?”

Steve just smiled and sleepily pressed a kiss against her hair, but he couldn’t help thinking about what kind of father he would be, and that whatever kind of kid might come from him and Darcy, he’d love to meet them. He thought that a week into a relationship was a bit soon to mention stuff like that, so he just pulled her a little closer as they fell asleep.


	2. What do I call you?

“Hey Steve-o,” Darcy called from the kitchen as he settled into the couch with a bowl of popcorn, “Beer or coke?”

“Beer,” he called over his shoulder with a grin, knowing that Darcy wouldn’t have one if he didn’t, even though he said it wasn’t exactly drinking _alone_. As an added bonus, if one beer turned into two or three, he would have a slightly tipsy Darcy on his hands, which tended to be a _lot_ of fun.

She pressed the cold bottle to the back of his neck as she passed behind him on her was around the couch, causing him to yelp and spill popcorn. She laughed, flopping down beside him and passing him the beer.

“You’re a real peach, sweetheart,” he grumbled, but he was grinning as he took a sip.

“I thought we already talked about sweetheart,” she said, curling her knees up onto the couch and tucking herself under his arm. “If you’re gonna try out a pet name.” He grinned and waited until she had properly settled herself to drop his arm down to rest on her hip.

“Darling?” he asked with a raised eyebrow.

She made a little moue of distaste, “that one always sounded so patronising to me.”

“Lover?” Steve tried again with a waggle of an eyebrow, just to see the way it made her laugh.

“There’s no way you could ever say that with a straight face,” she elbowed him in the ribs, but as her elbow was already pretty much in his rib, it didn’t hurt much.

“ _Lover_ ,” Steve intoned deadpan in an overdramatic tone.

Darcy snorted with laugher, “Okay, fine, I could never _listen_ to that with a straight face.”

“Well what do _you_ suggest then,” he said looking down at her fondly, “because you _know_ I’m going to get carried away with sentimentality in public one of these days.”

He watched with an intense interest as her cheeks colored slightly, but she shrugged and just said “I’m sure you’ll come up with something.”

“No way,” he gave her hip a little squeeze, “that was a something face.” He cajoled. “You have a thought, don’t you?”

“I have lots of thoughts,” she said rolling her eyes at him, but her cheeks were still pink.

“Tell me,” he said, bending to press his lips against her brow.

She let out a little huff and bit her lip. “Well,” he found it adorable how she could be so confident most of the time, but the oddest little things made her shy. “I guess I like it how you call me ‘beautiful’ some times, like it’s just a fact.”

Just when he thought he couldn’t love her more. He pulled her into him, slanting his lips over hers and pushing forward into her mouth as it opened under his. She tasted of beer and popcorn and something that was undeniably her. He smiled against her as he drew back, and then let the cold bottle in his hand press against the strip of skin exposed between her pants and t-shirt. She yelped and gave him a little shove.

“Sorry, beautiful,” he said unrepentantly, “but you make a man forget himself.”

She rolled her eyes, but a smile was still playing around her lips as she tucked herself back against him. “Just start the movie you loser.”

“Oh so that’s how it is?” Steve said in mock indignation as the opening titles started. “I get ‘Steve-o’ and ‘loser’? You get the sweet pet names that are also incredibly accurate?”

“You saying loser isn’t accurate?” her eyes were twinkling as she looked up at him.

“Fair point,” he said with a sardonic grin.

“Just shut up and watch the movie Captain.” But way the word rolled over her tongue, smooth and warm rather than the harsh military clip of so many others, the way her hand slid across his thigh until it lay trapped between his knees, and the way it had been the thing that kept them apart before made him feel like he was just fine with that title being a thing for them together.


	3. Monthaversary

“Lookin’ a bit twitchy there Cap,” Clint had somehow gotten close enough to lean against the wall behind him without Steve noticing. He _must_ be off his game. He sighed, turning to rest his shield in a rack beside him. He couldn’t exactly try new things with the shield in Sal’s gym, but thankfully Stark had a practically indestructible training room.

“Trouble in paradise?”

Steve rolled his eyes, everything now was immediately about Darcy. Of course, you know, this actually _was_ , but still.

“Doesn’t Natasha usually deal with this kind of stuff?” Steve asked as he walked over to a nearby bench to grab a drink and a towel.

“She’s in Beirut for a week, figured I’d at least see if I could help.”

Steve paused for a moment. He got along with Clint fine, but he had never really _talked_ with the other man. Still, with Natasha out of town, he wasn’t sure who else he’d go to for advice. It wasn’t like he was going to ask _Tony_.

“Well,” he started hesitantly, “what do you know about…monthaversaries?”

Clint didn’t even _try_ to disguise his laughter, as Natasha would have.

Steve frowned, “forget it, this was a dumb idea, I’m leaving.”

“No, no,” Clint stepped in front of him, “Sorry cap, I don’t mean to laugh, it’s just…if CNN could see you now, you know?”

Steve cracked a grudging smile. “Yeah, well.” He shrugged, “SHIELD somehow missed out on modern relationships when they were bringing me up to speed.”

“Short sighted of them,” said Clint, straddling the bench as Steve sat down, “what’s your question?”

“Well, it’ll be a month in two days since Darcy and I started…” he trailed off, dating just never sounded right to him. That was too casual a word.

“Being madly in love?” Clint supplied with a grin, “Fucking like rabbits? Spending every waking moment together?”

Somehow it didn’t bother him when Clint was a bit crude the same way it did with Tony; probably because at least Clint started with the love part. He couldn’t supress a bit of a self-satisfied grin. “All of the above.”

“So what, exactly, is the problem you lucky son of a bitch?”

“Well, am I supposed to get her something? Make a big deal out of it? I mean, it wasn’t really…a _thing_ in my day, or maybe it was, but nobody talked about it and I’ve never been _with_ anyone for a month solid before, not in any sort of way that counted.”

“Well, I will admit that I’m not exactly your best bet for healthy relationships,” said Clint ruefully, “as Tasha will tell you at the drop of a hat, but the best I can come up with is that you know Darcy pretty well by now, and it doesn’t seem to _me_ like she’s one for anything big and showy, but you’d know best.”

“So you don’t think it’s one of those things where she’ll secretly be mad but not say anything about it?”

“Dude,” Clint looked at him with a raised eyebrow, “have you _ever_ known Darcy to be mad about something and not say anything about it?”

Steve let out a huff of laughter, “No, you’re right. Hey,” he said after a moment, “thanks.”

Clint waved a dismissive hand at him, “It can be really easy to spiral off into crazy town when something’s really important to you,” he said. “Once, I actually brought Tasha hearts and flowers for valentine’s day.”

Steve let out a bark of laughter, “Oh I bet that went over _real_ well.”

“’Bout as well as you’d think” said Clint ruefully, “C’mon, let’s go steal some beer form Stark and I’ll tell you all about it.”

+

+

Darcy woke up blearily, blinking at her ceiling for a few moments before she realised it was actually _her_ ceiling. Steve, on his “we’re sorry we let you get frozen” money plus his military back pay plus the really healthy contractor pay from SHIELD, had a much better apartment than her “science flunky” level pad, even if it was in the same neighbourhood, so over the past month she’d really been spending most of her time there.

Steve had left on an overnight training mission the afternoon before though, so here she was waking up in her own bed. She missed him, sure, but it was kind of nice to have somebody to miss. She realised, as she stretched and rolled to get out of bed, that it was in fact _exactly_ one month today since the night she had gone over to Steve’s place and finally got up the nerve to tell him how she felt.

She stretched again and her hip twinged from where Steve had pressed her up against a shelf in a broom closet in the science wing yesterday before he left.

Best. Decision. Ever.

And _not_ just because of the sex.

It was _easy_ being with Steve, once she had got over herself. He was still the guy who had been the best friend she’d ever have, before things got complicated. He was still fun to talk to, and smart, and quirky, and kind and he still paid attention to what she said and how she was feeling. She still relaxed around him, letting all her guards down.

She wasn’t going to lie, the sex part was an awesome bonus, but the pre-existing comfort and intimacy, she was pretty sure, was what made it so great.

She thought fondly of the way he still blushed at some of the things she said to him. Yesterday, for example, when he had come to take her to lunch before he left and he was apologetically ready to leave so he could spend as long with her as possible, she had leaned over and asked him if he’d ever fucked a girl in his uniform. His cheeks flushed immediately, but that hadn’t stopped him from tightening his grip where his hand rested on her hips, asking her if she _really_ needed to eat lunch right now, and then dragging her into a closet when she shook her head.

Her mind immediately turned to how she might show him how happy this past month had made her. Because the look on his face when he watched her tug open the fly on his uniform and sink to her knees, and the way his whole frame shook when she whispered in his ear that she really liked getting fucked by Captain America had given her some _ideas_. Specifically, it seemed really clear to her that Steve might have a bit of a thing for dressing up. Not surprising in his line of work, really.

She was just drifting into a guilty little pleasure of hers, fantasising about exactly what Clint and Natasha’s sex life was like, and she would bet her ass that Natasha had a collection of costumes that had _nothing_ to do with spy work, when she realised that something was out of place in her tiny little kitchen.

The window was open, for one.

There was also a beautiful white orchid sitting in the middle of the counter.

She walked over to it cautiously, Steve having given her a very stern lecture, filled with guilt, about how she needed to be careful, how he would never forgive himself if anything happened to her because of him.

But Steve’s cowl was sitting folded next to it neatly. He must have come home early. She smiled as she picked up the note lying next to the flower.

“Good morning beautiful. Lunch?” was all it said.

That smooth son of a bitch. Darcy grinned. He hadn’t even mentioned that he realised it was one month for them. She was sure he did. Steve was pretty damn sharp. But putting the label on it would have cheapened it a bit, like maybe it was just for show.

Steve didn’t do anything insincerely though, she knew that by now. She stuck her nose into the flower, inhaling once before setting about getting ready for work with a smile on her face.

+

+

The training mission had gone well. The mission to do something special for Darcy had gone pretty well to, he’d thought. And now he was off to meet his girl for lunch. It was a pretty good day, all told. Plus, the memory of yesterday afternoon in the broom closet was still quite fresh in his mind. There had been something… _really_ interesting about having sex with Darcy with his uniform on. He tried not to examine it to closely, because it probably didn’t say anything particularly good about things like humility and good behavior, but remembering the way she had looked, kneeling between his legs, and her joking comment (so long ago now) about ‘getting down on her knees for America’ was, quite frankly, just really a huge turn on.

Steve figured there was pretty much nothing that Darcy did that wasn’t a turn on, but there were layers, mores and lesses. That one was definitely a more.

He had worried out loud once, a week or so ago, that maybe they were having too much sex. Was he disrespecting her, by wanting her this much? And (someone painfully) he had suggested that he would be okay with taking a step back so they could ‘get to know each other’. Darcy, at that point sprawled across him on his couch nothing but wearing panties and his t-shirt, burst out laughing so hard that tears leaked from her eyes.

When she had pulled herself together, she had given him a fond look that never failed to warm him right to his toes. “Steve, you are unbearably old-fashioned, but really, I think we get a free pass on the casual dating part of the relationship because we logged a lot of hours before hand. Plus, it is in _all_ the rule books that dangerous situations are just really sexy. So you can keep on respecting me with your pants off, if you want.”

Steve laughed, the movement of his chest causing her to rise and fall against him. “There had to be at least one perk to this whole Captain America thing,” he said, running a hand up her thigh until it rested in the crease under her ass, “all the dangerous situations you could ask for.” Because his job was such a serious thing between them for so long, he really enjoyed every opportunity to take it a little less seriously.

Darcy snorted, “yeah I’m sure that team training slash paintball game yesterday was _really_ life threatening.”

“I was in serious danger of clashing,” said Steve with a straight face, “Tony was using pink paint pellets and that really doesn’t go with the red white and blue.”

“That would be tragic,” Darcy intoned seriously. “You sure you got all of it out of your hair?” her lips twisted into a promising grin.

“Shower?” he asked hopefully.

“Shower,” she agreed.

He was thinking fondly on wet skin and large shower stalls when he arrived down at the labs.

“Steve!” Darcy’s bright voice called out to him from the other side of the lab the moment he appeared in the doorway, “terminally punctual as always, give me five minutes?” she had lab goggles on and was transferring something in a series of tubes into a rack with tongs. Steve secretly thought that she looked adorable when she was in full on science mode, so it was no hardship to perch against Jane Foster’s bench and say hello while keeping one eye on his girl.

He couldn’t help being mildly disappointed that she didn’t immediately say anything about the flower though. He told himself he was being ridiculous, you didn’t give a girl a flower for the thank you. He had just wanted her to know he was thinking of her, really.

He willed himself to put it out of his mind, but the longer lunch went on without her saying _anything_ to indicate she had received it, or liked it, or that she even realised that today was in anyway significant, he began to get nervous. So even as they launched into their most recent long standing debate (Steve wanted to go see World War Z, Darcy wanted to rant about Brad Pitt bastardizing the “zombie bible”) he couldn’t help but wonder if it was too much? Was he coming on too strong? I mean, they had basically been living in each other’s back pocket for a month, and she had told him she loved him again, more than once. Seventeen times, if you were counting, which he was. But they hadn’t exactly talked about where the relationship was going, but it seemed to him at least that it was headed somewhere pretty long term. God he hoped so…maybe he hadn’t done enough? Maybe…

Before he knew it, Darcy had to get back to work and he had been distracted through what should have been the highlight of his work day. When he got a text from her later saying that the experiment they were running needed another hour so he should head home and she’d meet him later, it didn’t do anything to help him pull himself out of the pit he was talking himself into.

He recognised, somewhat distantly, that he was probably being ridiculous, but the irrational part of him just couldn’t calmly process things when his relationship to Darcy was on the line.

He went to the door with trepidation when he heard her knock a little after 7. He knew her knock, that had to mean something didn’t it?

She was wearing a long coat, he half noticed, too warm for the weather, and more makeup than usual. But she leaned one arm against the door frame and said “there was no science emergency,” and Steve’s stomach just dropped.

This was it, she was here to break up with him, wasn’t she? Over some stupid orchid? He was never listening to Clint again. He did sort of recognise that this was crazy and that her tone of voice didn’t exactly match what he feared she meant by her words, but he just couldn’t help from spilling out, “I’m sorry, I didn’t know what the right thing was, the flower was stupid, I’m sorry…”

“Steve?” her tone of voice was completely different now as she came in the door and closed it behind her, “you wanna explain to me why you look like I’m about to stomp all over you in my high heels?”

She was, he noticed now, wearing impressively tall and shiny red heels. Come to think of it, he really couldn’t even see the edge of a hemline under that jacket.

“It’s been a month,” he sat on the arm of the sofa, “and I wanted to let you know I was happy about it, you know? That I was thinking about you, so I left you a dumb flower. And then you didn’t say anything about it at lunch, and I didn’t know if I had done too much or not enough, but I just don’t want to lose you.” It all came out in a rush. If there was one thing he was learning in this transition they were making from friends to a lot more than that, it was that it was pretty much universally better to spill out all of his fears and concerns to Darcy right away. Secrets were what had led to that whole period of a month or so where they weren’t speaking and he thought his heart would rip itself in half every time he saw her. He really didn’t ever want to go back to that.

+

+

Darcy almost wanted to laugh. Almost. But Steve looked up at her with this sad little half grin, like he was trying to apologise to her, like he was saying “I’m sorry that this is all that I am.” And she was pretty fiercely determined to convince him that he was _so much_.

So walked up and planted herself between his thighs, her hands resting on his knees, looking up at him seriously. They joked around a lot, which she loved, but she wanted him to know she was really serious about this.

“Steve,” she started, “the flower was _perfect_. No one has ever done anything like that for me before. It was sweet and thoughtful and _private_. It was just for me, not so you could show anyone else that you were doing your job as a boyfriend.”

He looked up at her then, relief starting to flood his face.

“I didn’t say anything,” she went on, “because of the office rumor mill. The minute I said anything, half of the gossips would be talking about it like this sweet sappy bit of trivia, and the other half would be finding some way to twist it into our imminent break up. I wanted it to just stay between us, you know?”

“Oh,” said Steve sheepishly, but he was smiling now, “I can understand that.”

“But I would _much_ rather feed the rumor mill than have you freaking out on me for a day, just so you know for next time okay? You can ask me about stuff like that.” She could hear the insecurity in her own voice, because this was treading right around a bit of a sensitive spot for her. Steve reached out a hand and cupped her cheek, and she decided to follow her own advice.

“I know,” she started shakily, “I know that the way I acted before might make it kind of hard to trust that I’m not going to run off on you, but I swear Steve, I’m _here_ you know? I’m in it. I just…I want you to be able to be sure of me.”

“We’re kinda dumb sometimes,” said Steve fondly, taking her hands. “Darce, before you, I’d never really been in a relationship, not like this, certainly never for a month at a time. At this point, I am really just making it up as I go and I am honestly a bit surprised every time I manage not to mess up.”

 She laughed, pushing in to wrap her arms around him, feeling settled and safe as his arms fell around her back. “Yeah, we’re pretty dumb. But at least we’re dumb together, right?”

“Always,” he murmured into her hair.

“Happy monthaversary Steve,” she said after a minute, and grinned against his shoulder as he laughed. “You wanna unwrap your present?”

He pulled back a bit and she shoved down a small thrill of nerves. This was going to be some pretty new territory.

“You didn’t have to get me anything…” Steve looked a bit confused as he searched over her for a moment, not finding any pockets to hide parcels.

Darcy just raised an eyebrow and gave a quick look down to the tie on her waist.

He set her back on her feet with a strength and accuracy that she never failed to find really really sexy.

“Darce,” his throat sounded a bit dry, poor guy. She grinned.

“Yeah Steve?” she asked innocently.

“Are you wearing anything under that jacket?” his eyes were distinctly focused somewhere south of her face.

“Dare you to find out,” she was beginning to think this may have been her best idea ever. Steve look _focused_ in a way that was really hot.

He ran a hand through his hair before pulling at the tie on her coat. She was feeling distinctly light headed as he made his way through the buttons, his fingers brushing against her as he moved slowly downwards until the last button slipped free and he slid the coat off her shoulders.

There really hadn’t been a science emergency, she had needed Jane (under a bond of absolute secrecy) to help her with her hair and the damn garter belt. The effect, she had thought, had been worth all of Jane’s mad giggling.

The heels were so tall that they brought her face level with Steve’s shoulders, her thigh high stockings hooked to a garter belt which sat over blue satin high waisted panties. The white bustier she had found on sale at a lingerie store down the street hand been a particularly good purchase, she thought, by the way Steve seemed unable to take his eyes of the way it pushed up her breasts after he had worked his gaze up from the tip of her toes.

She couldn’t wait until he found out about the temporary tattoo she had found depicting the design on his shield.

It was going to take a while at this rate, because Steve hadn’t moved an inch.

“You alright there Captain?” she asked, momentarily worried, because maybe this was too much like the girls from his days, maybe Peggy had…

The thought was immediately pushed out of her head as Steve made a sound that she could most closely approximate as “hnnngnngn” and immediately ruined her carefully pinned up hair by digging his hand into it and crashing his mouth into hers.

Well, she thought resignedly, there goes the lipstick too.

+

+

“Darcy Jean Lewis,” she looked up over her shoulder in question. She had managed to pull his shirt off at some point in the proceedings, but he had been much more interested in peeling off _her_ clothing one piece at a time. Her shoes were in the living room somewhere, and she could see one stocking tossed over the lamp. God knows where the other and the garter belt were. She was still wearing the bustier, but Steve had just successfully pulled her panties down over her hips and off her toes and had bodily picked her up and set her on her knees.

Oh. Oh!

“Do you have a tattoo of my _shield_ on your ass?” he sounded a bit strangled and his fingers clenched into her soft curves as he pressed against her, his erection hard against her through his pants.

“I suppose I do,” she drawled at him, rolling her hips and drawing out a spine tingling groan as his fingers clutched at her hips. “Guess that mean’s it’s all yours.” She paused, wondering if Steve would _actually_ have a heart attack if it was real, “until it washes off in a few days at least.”

He made a little noise in the back of his throat that was halfway to a laugh. “You are really a lot better at gift giving than I am.”


	4. Worry

She had been locked in front of the television for the last 30 minutes, frozen to the point where her muscles were beginning to ache. She wanted to call her Dad, she wanted to call Karen, but she _couldn’t._ They had no idea that the current headline news being broadcast all over the country was, in fact, her boyfriend facing down a squadron of heavily armed mercenaries with alien tech.

She tried to reassure herself that, giant bulky weapons aside, these were just soldiers, and that Steve and the Avengers were doing just fine, but logic wasn’t exactly winning out over shaky cellphone footage and blurred security camera feeds showing Steve taking on more than any one man should ever have to.

She almost ignored the phone when it rang, that is until she saw it was Steve’s number.

“Steve?” she answered frantically, even though she could _see_ him in real time footage.

“Agent Coulson, I’m afraid.” His voice was calm and just ever so slightly exasperated. Darcy was convinced that Coulson didn’t think she was good enough for Steve. Steve said he just sounded like that all the time. Also, it was possible that he was jealous. She was pretty sure he had been kidding about that last part…maybe. It wasn’t top of her concerns at the moment though.

“Is he alright?”

“As you can probably see, Miss Lewis, the team has things well under control.” He actually sounded a bit sympathetic now, which sort of made her worry. “Captain Rogers made it quite clear when they were called in that you should be contacted.” There was a brief pause. “He threatened to take back his cards.”

Darcy let out a guffaw in spite of herself. Steve had replaced the cards damaged during Agent Coulson’s “death” with mint condition signed originals. Coulson had them framed in his office. It was a pretty serious threat.

“At any rate,” Coulson coughed and went on, “the Captain indicated that, given that he will be tied up at Stark Tower for debriefing immediately following this mission and will not be able to leave the premises until the process is complete, that a car should be sent to bring you in. I believe Ms. Potts and Ms. Foster are in the tower as well. They are expecting your arrival.”

For a moment she wondered how it was exactly that Stark had talked SHIELD into holding avengers debriefs at his tower, but it was quickly overwhelmed by a surge of the warm fuzzies. Steve had to know that she would be freaking out, and he had strong armed Agent Phil “supernanny” Coulson into making sure she was taken care of and could see him immediately after this was all over.

“That would be great,” she said, too relieved to worry about the way her voice shook.

She was thankfully too focused on the news footage being played on a small screen in the back of the car to be frightened by how quickly Happy could make his way across Manhatten in traffic and during an attack on the city, but it hardly seemed like any time at all before she found herself in Tony Stark’s penthouse suite.

“Darcy!” Jane called happily from the couch, “Thank god you’re finally here! We need a tie breaker on a very important issue involving thighs and spandex.”

Jane and Pepper were sprawled out on the couch, boxes of ice cream and a six pack of beer on the table.

“Oh!” Pepper waved a hand at the big screen they were facing, “close up on Natasha’s butt. Drink!”

Darcy blinked at them.

“Are you guys playing a drinking game?”

Pepper looked over at her sympathetically patting the couch beside her. “Far better than spiralling into a panic,” she said kindly. “Which is what I tend to do whenever I’m out of the tower when this sort of thing goes down.”

“Thor started it, really,” said Jane, passing Darcy the bottle as she sat down, “he told me I couldn’t handle a drink for every foe he vanquished.”

“I think it was actually ‘shouldn’t’” said Pepper.

“Either way, he was totally wrong,” Jane shrugged with a grin.

Darcy flopped down on the couch, feeling a boneless sense of relief creep over her as she cracked open a beer.

“So what are the rules?”

+

+

It was, it turned out, a _lot_ easier to poke fun at the cable news _reportage_ and to make up arbitrary drinking game rules. (A lot of which, for some reason, seemed to involve butts in spandex being shown on the news. “Yeah, but they’re _our_ butts” Jane had defended when Darcy had questioned it). It certainly beat sitting at home winding herself tighter and tighter with the stress of it.

There was one moment, right near the end, where a section of ruined wall toppled over onto Steve and all of the worry that she had been pushing away just came roaring back at her like a freight train. It didn’t help that this was about at the point where the battle was winding up and the live feeds were shutting down.

But it was okay, because Jane was there clutching her hand and Pepper was immediately on her cell phone yelling her way up the SHIELD chain of command until she got some information. Steve was just fine and the team was heading back in.

+

+

He was jittery and tense on the ride back to the tower. Usually, right after a battle, he could relax, let the adrenaline seep out of his system. He was generally happy to sit still and let the medics confirm that he was fine. Today, though, he brushed them off, pacing around the hold of the quinjet.

He was worried, not about the mission or his team. Objectives accomplished, everyone in one piece. But Darcy had to have been watching. Darcy who’s deep seated and justified fear of losing him in combat had nearly ended their relationship before it started.

Coulson was waiting for them on the roof when he landed and, to the man’s credit, didn’t even blink when Steve barrelled towards him with a terse “where is she?” When Coulson told him he could find her in Tony’s living room, he ran for the elevator without a backward glance.

When he burst into the penthouse, probably tracking dust and grime all over Tony’s shiny things but really not caring, he heard feminine laughs coming from the couch. Well that was comforting, he supposed.

“Darcy?” he called, moving purposefully towards the voices.

“Steve!” he saw her pop up over the back of the couch, a wide smile on her face and…was she _drinking_? It was an issue that could be addressed later. For right now, all he could think of was getting to her, pulling her into his arms, and kissing her for all he was worth.

“You okay?” he asked her finally, after setting her on her feet.

“I’m okay,” she smiled softly up at him, her hand against his neck. He didn’t even taste any liquor on her lips, so he was fairly certain that was her and not the beer talking.

“I’m so glad you came,” he pulled her a little closer, resting his chin on her hair. “I was so worried.”

“Steve,” her voice was a little muffled against his chest, but he wasn’t ready to let her go, “aren’t I supposed to be the one worrying?”

He pulled back and gave her a concerned look, but she was still smiling at him. “Were you?” he asked, carefully tucking a strand of hair behind her ear.

“Yeah,” she said honestly, “but it’s a lot easier to handle when these two idiots are just sitting there ogling your butt in the spandex than it was sitting on my couch at home.” She gestured over at Pepper and Jane, who waved hello at him with shameless grins. He was going to choose to ignore that particular piece of information. “And you’re here and you’re fine, you are fine right?”

He grinned, “yeah, I’m fine.”

“So everything’s okay. We’re okay.” She reached down to squeeze his hand, looking up at him with a determined expression.

He knew she worried, she had told him so, that he thought she was uncertain, or couldn’t be trusted because her fear had been a barrier between them for so long. But most of the time, the way Steve saw it, she’d already jumped whatever hurdle it had been that she needed to to be with Captain America, already more than made up for whatever harm she thought she had caused, when she had gutted up and showed up at his door a bit more than two months ago.

It didn’t mean her fears weren’t still there or didn’t matter, and it didn’t mean he didn’t worry every now and again that this would all become too much for her, or worse that his job would end up putting her in danger, but right now he didn’t think there was anything more solid in his life than the woman standing in front of him.

“Course we are,” he mumbled just before slanting his mouth over hers, settling his hands around her hips, and pressing into her mouth until he drew that desperate little gasp that he loved so much.

“Ah!” he was startled into pulling back by Thor’s booming voice far too close behind him, “Captain,” he gave Steve a jarring clap on the shoulder, “I will gladly follow your lead in this as well” he then enthusiastically swept Jane up into a kiss that seemed to be mostly giggling from her. Steve chuckled, the familiar release of tension finally settling over him, now that Darcy was there, warm and close and alright.

“See,” Tony, having apparently stowed the suit, came strolling in, “we do occasionally like _some_ of your plans Captain. Been keeping busy Pep?” she sauntered up to him, nodding to Clint and Natasha who had arrived and were somewhat impatiently waiting to get the debrief started.

“What, no hello for me?” she asked with a raised eyebrow.

“A little cliché, isn’t it?” he pulled her in by her hand, “I thought I’d save it up for something a bit more private.”

Steve averted his eyes, always uncomfortable intruding on other people’s moments.

“That’s not a bad idea, you know” Darcy rose up on her toes to whisper in his ear, “I was actually trying to come up with some sort of debriefing pun, but I never quite got it, so I’ll just stick with letting you know that once you can get out of here, I plan to take you home and make you come until you can’t move anymore.”

Steve froze, looking immediately up, sure he could feel his face about to burst into flames. It was _not_ that he didn’t appreciate the image, but…

“Oh god,” he could see Darcy taking in Thor’s amused grin and Natasha’s raised eyebrows. “You all heard that, didn’t you,” she sounded more resigned than embarrassed.

Clint, with a shit eating grin, pointed to Natasha “Russian enhancements,” to Thor “actual god,” and to himself, “known for acute senses. We all heard that.”

“ _I_ didn’t hear it,” complained Tony. “What’d she say?” he was, rightfully, ignored.

“Got it,” he was rather amused to see that Darcy, usually shameless, was coloring. “I will save the dirty talk for when I get you home soldier.”

See, shameless. She was grinning as she pulled him down with a hand behind his neck to kiss him, just as Coulson showed up to call them into the debrief.

He pulled away from Darcy, looking at Coulson with mild exasperation. “Are you _sure_ we have to do this _now_?”

“I for one,” proclaimed Tony, “really like Cap when he’s got a proper woman to come home to.”

Steve, for once, couldn’t disagree.


	5. Gloves Off

There was no TV footage for the sort of mission Steve was on this time. Well, Darcy thought with a wry grin, not unless it went really tits up. Steve had been undercover for the last week or so, but he was with Natasha, and Coulson was updating her every few hours, so it was okay. She worried, sometimes, about how calm she was getting when Steve was out on a mission.

“Maybe,” Steve had said, his arms tightening around her when she voiced it, “you’re just starting to realise that I’m always gonna do whatever it takes to come back to you.”

It hadn’t exactly been a comforting statement, but she hadn’t wanted to talk about it really. Because it had just made her think about Agent Margaret Carter who had died waiting for Steve to come back to her. They had never talked about Peggy. Not even once in almost six months of being together.

She shook off the thought as she heard a knock on the door, a smile crossing her face.

“Hello soldier,” she said with a soft grin as she opened the door to admit a tired looking, but whole and unharmed, Steve. He pulled her in and held her tightly for a long moment.

“Hey beautiful,” he murmured against her hair, but didn’t move to release her. He sounded a bit…off.

“Everything okay?” she asked, pulling back to run a hand through his hair, a look of concern on her face.

“Yeah,” he said, an unconvincing smile crossing his lips as he reached back to pull the door closed. “I just…I need to tell you about something.”

“Okay,” she said warily, taking a step back. This was a new tone. She had thought, after all their time of being friends, and now a significant chunk of time together, she had known all of his tones. She sat on the couch, pulling her feet up under her.

He sat beside her on the other end of the couch, dropping his elbows onto his knees and running his hands through his hair.

“This mission,” he started, and then paused, “I didn’t get the specs until we were already on our way, otherwise I would have told you before but…” he sighed. “Look, I can’t tell you much, but Natasha and I…our cover was…well, we were married.”

He stumbled over the words and for some reason that made them sound that much worse to Darcy. She knew, she _knew_ , intellectually that this was part of the territory. But _Natasha_? The kick ass SHIELD agent who could walk through a war and come out looking spectacular on the other side?

Darcy had always had this little thread of unreasonable envy when it came to Natasha. She and Steve had a relationship that Darcy wasn’t really sure she understood, and she was so far into a part of Steve’s world that Darcy couldn’t be part of. Right now, for instance, she was struck by the distinct and chilling thought that Natasha was far closer to Steve’s type than she was, if Agent Carter was any indication. Agent Carter, who Steve was clearly still so messed up about that he never talked about it.

She tried to shut down the overthinking, she really did. But she was sure her voice sounded pretty cold when she managed to say “Oh?”

“It wasn’t…” Steve started nervously, “I mean, most of the time we were crawling through sewers and shooting things, but there was a party and someone who could ID me and we had to…” he took a deep breath, “I kissed her Darce. And it was weird and awkward and just unavoidable if we wanted to get out alive, but I wanted to tell you.”

“You _kissed_ her?” it slipped out before she could get a hold of it and Steve winced.

“I…” he started.

“Nope,” Darcy cut him off, a huge pile of negative feelings working their way up, clawing to get out. “You _kissed_ Natasha Romanov. _Bullshit_ that it meant _nothing_ Steve. Bullshit! You two are neck deep in each other’s shit. There’s no way that it’s _nothing_!”

He looked up at her, eyes wide in surprise.

“Darce,” he tried in what she was sure he intended to be a calming tone, “you can’t think that I feel that way about Tasha…”

“How they hell would I know?” she spat back, “there are _plenty_ of things you don’t tell me about the way you feel.” She could feel some really bad decision statements ominously close to being made. She could feel completely unrelated concerns getting the better of her, but she couldn’t stop it. Well, that wasn’t exactly accurate was it, she didn’t _want_ to stop it. There were things that she wanted on the table. Granted this probably wasn’t the best way to go about it, but…

“I thought,” and now Steve sounded a bit angry, “that I had at least been pretty clear about the way I feel about you.”

“What about Peggy Carter?”

“ _What_?” Yeah, Steve was definitely mad now. He stood up abruptly, pacing away from her, “what the hell does that have to do with anything.”

“Oh come on Steve,” in for a penny in for a pound, she supposed, “your file is full of her, I read the transcript of the call you made when you were on your way into the ice. You’ve never said a word about her. Maybe you’ve got a thing for buried feelings about SHIELD agents.”

“You read my _file_?”

Oh. Right. She wasn’t exactly supposed to have access to that. And, even if Jarvis did like her, it probably had been an invasion of Steve’s privacy.

“I just…” she was almost glad when Steve cut her off, because she didn’t exactly know what she was going to say to defend herself, and the righteous anger born of insecurities and defensiveness that the knowledge of her boyfriend kissing the black widow had kicked up was starting to wane.

“You know what,” he said tightly, “I don’t want to hear it right now. Just…” he let out a frustrated sigh “maybe call me when you’re feeling rational.”

She could see on his face that he knew it had been a bad idea the minute he said it, but he was not exactly taking the prize today on ill-considered statements.

She stalked over to the door and tore it open. “Get the fuck out Steve.”

He got the fuck out.

+

+

She was somehow unsurprised, a few hours later, to find Clint on her doorstep. Steve, she thought sourly, had probably called _Natasha_ who apparently dealt with all of his girl problems, of which she was now apparently one.

“I come in peace,” he said, “and with beer.”

She sighed unhappily, but let him in. “I suppose Natasha sent you,” she said woodenly, immediately popping open a beer and collapsing against the sofa. She was glad, at least, that she had had a good cry and time to wash her face and make herself presentable again before Clint came over.

“She didn’t actually,” he said evenly, sitting on the other end of the couch and putting his feet up on the coffee table. “I was cover on the latest op, and I saw Steve throwing his shield around really hard at the tower range. Thought maybe you’d heard a thing or two about it as well.”

“Just the one thing, really,” she said darkly, taking a pull of her beer.

“So Steve came back, was honest with you and then, what? Broke your favorite mug? Left a towel on the floor?” Clint cracked a beer and tried for a lighthearted tone.

“How can you just not give a shit that he kissed Natasha?” she said harshly.

“Well I didn’t exactly _enjoy_ watching it,” he said wryly, “but it’s just part of the job. Probably helps that I’m a part of it, you know? Sometimes it’s me playing a cover, and at least I’m in her ear the whole time. But even if I weren’t, I trust her.”

Darcy, somewhat unexpectedly, burst into tears. She felt a tentative hand on her back as she sobbed into her arms. She felt sort of distantly sorry for Clint. He was a good guy to come over and talk to her, especially since they really didn’t know each other all that well. She pulled herself together through sheer force of will, wiping at her eyes.

“Sorry, sorry,” she said to Clint, who looked incredibly uncomfortable and concerned. “It’s just... I know Steve loves me, I _know_ that. But there are so many things he _can’t_ tell me about and a few more that he just _won’t._ There are so many pieces of his life that I don’t know about that I’m not really sure I do trust him all of the time.” It had been a very uncomfortable thought to have, and expressing it out loud was just as hard.

“Darce,” Clint tried carefully, “I get that you can’t trust Steve to tell you everything about a mission, because he _can’t_. But he came straight home and told you what you needed to know about this one, didn’t he?”

She nodded slowly.

“And you _can_ trust that he’s not secretly in love with Natasha, right?” he elbowed her with a teasing grin, but there was kindness in his face.

She let out a damp laugh, “yeah, I suppose.”

“So what exactly is it that you don’t trust him with?”

And she found herself spilling out to Clint in a rush the well of insecurity she had been slowly building up the longer and longer he went without talking to her about Peggy Carter, and how it had led to her reading his file, and how she had brought it into a confrontation that wasn’t really about that at all.

“Oh Darce,” said Clint finally, “you’ve made a bit of a hash of this, haven’t you?” it was sympathetic, but she supposed he had a point. She chose to just down the end of her beer instead of answering.

“Look, wouldn’t it be easier just to _tell_ Steve that you’re worried that he won’t talk to you about his past with Peggy than to let it seep so far into you that you basically accuse him of cheating on you with Natasha?”

“Well it sounds so logical when you put it like that,” she said dryly.

“Well I have a few years of experience on you in being in a relationship with a super hero,” he said. “And my number one tip is that civilians might be able to handle a few secrets for the sake of preserving egos, but _you_ can’t, because I can guarantee you that your relationship will get tested in ways that normal people don’t even know about.”

“Oh,” she said in a small voice, “well that sort of sucks.”

“You don’t think Steve is worth taking a bit of an ego hit for?” it was challenging, she was sure he meant it to be. It didn’t stop her automatic response.

“Of _course_ he is.”

“Then maybe cut the guy a bit of slack, because he was _miserable_ the whole trip home thinking about telling you and I would wager a lot of money he is pointlessly trying to get himself drunk enough to face you breaking his heart right now.” Clint opened another beer and passed it to her. He was right enough, she thought as she took a healthy drink, that she could use some dutch courage for this one.

“I’d _never_ leave Steve,” she said miserably, thinking of Steve’s face when she threw his well-intentioned confession back in his face.

“And he’d never leave you kiddo,” said Clint kindly.

“I just…” she couldn’t help one last maudlin expression of self-doubt “I’m no Natasha…”

“No, you’re not.” Clint agreed easily, and she looked up at him sharply. “But she’s no Darcy either. Guess which one Steve prefers.”

“Oh. Right.” A small smile worked its way across her lips.

“You ready to stow that insecurity and put on your big girl pants?” he asked, standing up and offering her a hand up.

“Yeah, I think so.” She took one last sip of her drink before letting herself be pulled upright.

Clint checked his phone quickly, “I’ll walk you over to Steve’s. He’s back there now.”

He kept a hand around her elbow as they walked down the block, like she was a flight risk. He was probably right to. She was not particularly looking forward to this. Some Avengers related anxiety aside, things had been pretty easy between them. This was definitely the first time they had really fought. She would give quite a lot for their fights to be about stuff like money and how many kids they wanted rather than making out with the Black Widow because it was your job and not talking about the love of your life who you lost due to being frozen for 70 years. She was pretty sure there were no relationship self-help books that covered that stuff.

They stopped outside Steve’s building and Clint gave her arm a quick squeeze. “Good luck kiddo,” he said with a grin, “And please never tell me how it went, because we all know this is going to lead directly to Steve peeling off your big girl pants with his teeth and I really don’t want to hear about it.”

She managed a smile, “thanks,” she hoped he could hear the sincerity.

As he headed off, she steeled herself and let herself into the building with her key. She thought the better of just walking straight in and knocked on the door of his apartment.

She could hear his footsteps as he approached the door. There was a long pause, after he must have seen her through the peephole, before he slowly pulled the door open.

It had only been a few hours since she had last seen him, but he looked exhausted and disheveled and his eyes still looked hard and angry.

“Hi,” she said in a tiny voice. “Can I come in?”

He paused for a moment and she held her breath, but then he stepped aside to let her enter, closing the door behind him.

“I’m feeling a bit more rational now,” she tried to joke as they stood in an uncomfortable stand-off near the door. She could tell immediately by the way Steve’s shoulders tightened even further that it hadn’t been a good idea.

“I shouldn’t have said that,” he said tightly. He didn’t elaborate. It looked like she wasn’t going to get any help on this one. So she took a deep breath.

“This isn’t really about Natasha,” she said, “I know that it was just a job and it didn’t mean anything. I really appreciate that you told me.”

Steve let out a breath, “Okay,” he said, looking ever so slightly less wound up.

“And I’m really sorry that I read your file. That was really not cool of me.”

“Yeah,” he said abruptly, “It was.”

She winced. And then she reminded herself that she did have a legitimate concern here, even if she had handled it poorly.

“What it _is_ about, Steve, is that you have never once told me anything about Peggy Carter other than that you might’ve married her.”

“Maybe I don’t _want_ to talk to you about her,” said Steve in a frustrated tone.

“Yeah, I got that,” she said dryly, “but how do you think that makes me feel? I know that you love me, but you loved her too, and you never came back to her, and I don’t think you’ve ever got over that.” She violently clamped down on the sob that was threatening to claw its way out of her throat.

“How that makes _you_ feel? Christ Darcy, how do you think it makes _me_ feel? It took me a really long time to get to the point where I could even _function_ after losing Peggy, after losing _everyone_ I cared about. You think that falling in love with you wasn’t _terrifying_ because of it? I don’t want to talk to you about Peggy because every time I think about it, the thought of losing you like that makes me want to fall apart, to walk away from everything that I am and never let you out of my sight.”

“Oh _Steve_ ,” her voice was barely a breath. She had been so focused on her own insecurities that she hadn’t really given enough thought to why Steve might want to keep this from her. The way his voice was right on the edge of out of control, and the look in his eyes, it just made all of her need to be reassured fall away. It wasn’t her that needed to be taken care of this time. This was Steve’s pain.

She took a tentative step towards him, and when he didn’t step back, she reached out and cautiously took his hand. “I’m sorry,” she said softly, “I didn’t…I didn’t think. You’re just…you’re so much _more_ than me, that sometimes I get insecure, but I didn’t think about your reasons. It was just…selfish. I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.”

Steve let out his breath in a rush and pulled her into him, his arms tight around her back as hers settled around his waist, her face pressed into his chest. The physical contact was so comforting that she let herself relax into it, the tears that had been pressing behind her eyes rolling into his shirt.

“Darce don’t you _ever_ think that I’m _more_ than you,” he whispered harshly into her hair. “I’m _not_. I’m just a man, you _know_ that.”

She nodded against his chest, because she did know it, even if it could be easy to forget sometimes, to hold him up to impossible ideals. And she didn’t want Captain America. She wanted Steve. And Steve was as fallible as anyone else.

“You’re always so confident,” he started quietly after a pause, “it never even occurred to me that you might be worried.”

“Well, I was trying to hide it,” she sniffed.

“Darce I…” his arms tightened around her momentarily, “You have to know that you have nothing to be worried about. I love you. You know that right? I’m just…I’m not perfect. You never seem to let me make any mistakes.”

“I’m sorry,” she said against his chest, “I know you’re not perfect, but you’re just so perfect _for me_ that sometimes things sneak up on me.”

His chin dropped to rest on her hair and he sighed “I really don’t want to talk about Peggy. And I _really_ hate that you went into my file to find out about her.”

She blew out a breath. “I feel awful about it Steve.”

“I know,” he said evenly, “But I might still be angry about it for a little while.”

“That’s okay,” she said in a small voice, “so long as it’s not forever.”

“I could never stay mad at you for long,” he said in a wry tone.

“I’m still probably going to worry sometimes about the things you can’t tell me,” she added softly, “especially when you don’t even acknowledge that they’re there.”

“I’ll try to get better at that,” Steve said into her hair.

Another long moment passed.

“I promise you that I _will_ be able to talk to you about her at some point, okay?” he added quietly.

“You don’t have to…” she started.

“Yeah, I do,” he interrupted, “because she was the first woman I ever loved Darce, and she’ll always be a part of me.”

“Of course she will be,” Darcy squeezed Steve a little tighter.

He pulled back slightly, his hand coming up to cup her cheek and wipe at the tear tracks down her face, “she may have been the first woman I loved, but I swear you’re gonna be the last.”

She raised herself up on her toes and pressed her lips to his. It was an innocent kiss, and she could taste her own tears in it, but she was going to put it on her top ten list. Because the way Steve kissed her back, the way his hands splayed against her back like they always did, even though she knew that it was going to take a few days for them to stop being careful around each other, for the emotion of it to level out, he was _there_. And maybe she could actually believe that she was _it_ for him.

She smiled against his mouth.

“What?” he gave her a bemused look as he pulled back.

“First fight,” she said, unable to shut down the smile that pulled at her lips.

“And this is, what, funny?” he asked, with a resignedly amused look.

“No, it was really really not funny,” she said immediately, “but I think we actually handled it pretty well, don’t you?”

Steve let out a little huff of laughter, “not bad, I guess. I give us high marks in communication.”

“Plus an additional ten point bonus for only needing a few hours after the initial blow out to calm down,” she added, pulling herself back against his chest.

“Do we get points for no name calling too?” he asked against her hair.

“Sure,” she said with a grin, “also for very minimal swearing.”

She felt his chest move underneath her in a laugh.

“So,” he said after a moment, “what now.”

She pulled away from him carefully. “Well, I can go if you want some space,” she felt very reluctant about it, but he did have a right to be mad at her about the file thing. And the knowledge that there were things he wasn’t ready to share with her yet wasn’t exactly her favorite thing she knew about Steve.

His hands tightened on her hips reflexively. “No,” he said firmly, “I don’t want you to go.” He pulled her back against him firmly, “I want you here. I’ve _missed_ you.”

“Me too,” she said gratefully. “I was sort of hoping we could just sort of lie around, maybe put on a movie.”

“Yeah,” he breathed into her hair, “that sounds good.”

In the end, they didn’t get very far into the movie before they fell asleep, wrung out by the day, wrapped around each other.

When she woke up the next morning, blinking awake to find Steve watching her sleep with a smile on his face, she introduced him to make up sex.


	6. The Gloves are Off

“Rogers! Just because you’re sleeping with her doesn’t mean you should let her get away with that.” Sal was hollering at them from across the gym as he walked towards the office. Steve was in the ring with Darcy and, in Sal’s defence, really _had_ just voluntarily let her land a poorly balanced right hook.

He rolled his eyes. “You’re not the one that gets kicked out of bed when you criticise her form, Sal.” It was completely untrue. Darcy had never once kicked him out of bed, for any reason. Unless it was to go have sex somewhere that wasn’t the bed. That had happened a few times. And to be fair, Steve usually brought it on himself by mentioning things like “I don’t understand why he wouldn’t just hold her up against the wall while he was doing that” when they were watching a sex scene in a movie.

“Hey!” Darcy exclaimed, jabbing him in the solar plexus, “You lettin’ me win Rogers? Think I can’t take you fair and square?” She danced around in a poor imitation of her fighting stance, waggling her gloved fists at him.

“I would never say such a thing,” he answered with a broad grin. Even without the whole super strength thing, he had a good ten inches and probably 70 pounds on Darcy. It made a boxing match between the two of them pretty easy to call. Plus, Darcy played by the rules in the ring and Steve would never fight dirty with her anyways. Maria Hill, on the other hand…

 “Yeah, but you’re thinking it!” Darcy accused, loud and in mock indignation, clearly for Sal’s benefit.

“Actually,” Steve dropped his tone and stepped in closer, “I was thinking about letting Agent Hill give you some pointers, teach you how to fight unfairly. But only if I get to watch.” 

He could immediately feel the color creep up his neck as the words came out with far more innuendo than he had intended.

“I mean…” he immediately started to backtrack, “not that I would…or want to…it’s just…”

Darcy doubled over with her arms on her knees, laughing so hard that tears sprang up in her eyes. “Oh Steve,” she gasped, “I would worry about you if you ever said you were totally disinterested in the idea of me and Maria getting sweaty together, because that would be a lie.” She stepped into him, her grin turning predatory in a way that Steve really liked, because it usually promised something really fun. “Hell, _I_ would be lying if I said I was totally disinterested in the idea.”

“Oh,” said Steve dumbly. He felt like someone had just hit him in the back the head with a frying pan. A really sexy frying pan. “That’s…uh…d’you wanna get out of here?”

“Don’t you want to work on my form?” Darcy blinked up at him with an innocent look that was fooling exactly no one.

“ _Yeah,_ ” he dropped his hands to her hips, not exactly satisfying as they were encased in boxing gloves, “I really really do.”

“Disgusting,” Gus had snuck up on them, standing just outside the ring with an amused expression, “you guys are just absolutely revolting. You’ve been together for _months_ now, you’re supposed to stop all this sickening shit and get complacent and boring like the rest of us.”

Darcy, who like Steve had met Gus’s sprightly and exuberant wife on a number of occasions, none of which suggested that the older couple was anywhere near boring or complacent, made a disbelieving noise. “Didn’t you and Val just come back from a trip to Niagara?” She asked.

“What’s your point?” asked Gus.

“And were you or were you not completely unable to tell us anything about Niagara other than how nice your hotel room was?” she finished triumphantly.

“Ah, well,” Gus waived a dismissive hand with a cheerful grin, “If you’re gonna be all lovey dovey, at least get out of the ring so someone else can use it.”

Darcy gave an obliging little salute and slipped between the ropes, hopping smoothly to the gym floor. She looked back at Steve over her shoulder.

“Coming?” she quirked an eyebrow at him.

From a few meters away at a speed bag, Lonny snickered at the double entendre, drawing a glare from Darcy. Darcy had liked it better, she sometimes joked, when Lonny had had a giant crush on her. Steve thought things were probably better the way they were. Plus Lonny’s new girlfriend who he would not stop talking about seemed really sweet.

And then Steve found himself the subject of Darcy’s glare, as an obnoxious claxon sounded from his bag sitting near the ring. He jumped to the floor and snatched the phone up at once.

“Rogers,” he snapped into the phone. Every time the so-called “batphone” rang, he could feel the immediate surge of adrenaline and knee jerk tensing of his muscles.

“Rogers!” an exuberant Tony was on the line.

“What’s the situation?” Steve asked cautiously. Tony never called out missions, and he sounded awfully happy…

“I’m calling as assembly,” he went on excitably, “I need you to assemble.”

“For what,” Steve asked sharply.

“For a party Rogers,” Tony stated like this should be somehow obvious to him.

“Wha…” he shouldn’t really be surprised at Tony using their emergency SHIELD contact system to organise a party, but he was.

“You know what, put your lady friend on the phone,” said Tony briskly, “she’s much better at getting you to do fun stuff.”

Steve thought about protesting for a moment, but he just handed the phone over to Darcy with a long suffering sigh. She took it with a confused and apprehensive look.

“What?” she said excitedly a few moment later, “are you serious? How did you talk her into that?” After a pause, she started laughing, “alright alright, we’ll be there shortly. She hung up, grinning broadly at Steve.

“Tony is assembling the Avengers to properly welcome his soon to be _wife_ into the fold,” she said with a slightly disbelieving tone.

Steve blinked, “You mean he and Pepper…?”

“I guess she finally caved,” said Darcy with a grin, “and I always thought she was too smart for that.

Steve made a non-committal noise. He didn’t really care for the insinuation that getting married was somehow a stupid idea, especially not when he increasingly found himself thinking about what sort of ring Darcy would want, and how he would ask her if he ever got up the nerve.

“So we’re going to the tower?” he asked with wry acceptance. He wasn’t usually a fan of Tony’s idea of a party, but the man was his teammate and, he had to admit, a friend. Plus, he liked Pepper a lot.

“Happy is on his way,” Darcy said with a roll of her eyes, we won’t even have time to shower.

+

+

“Is this normal?” Steve whispered to her, his arm tucked around her waist and his head bent to her ear.

She laughed, looking around Tony and Pepper’s apartment. Clearly they were not the only ones to have been pulled away from other activities. Their gym clothes didn’t even stand out next to Hill and Coulson who looked like they had just returned from field maneuvers, or Barton and Natasha who were still in uniform.

“An engagement party? Sure, that’s pretty normal,” she answered with some amusement, “it’s the mandatory and immediate nature of this one that is all Tony.”

“I kind of like it,” said Steve unexpectedly, “like he couldn’t wait to share the news. I get that.”

He was looking at her in that way he always did when anything that touched on the fact that they’d been together for more than a year and everyone was pretty much expecting their engagement came up. She thought maybe he looked nervous or apprehensive, like he thought he was supposed to say something that he didn’t want to say, or that he wanted to say something that he wasn’t supposed to.

She did what she always did in those moments, she deflected. “At least we got caught in something comfortable. Barton has to be sweating under all that Kevlar.”

Steve grinned at her, if a little stiffly, pressed a kiss against her hair, and went off in search of Pepper.

Darcy bit at the corner of her lip contemplatively. Steve Rogers, for all his warmth and compassion, was definitely keeping a few secrets.

“Darcy,” Jane approached excitedly, pressing a drink into her hand, “exciting news, isn’t it?”

“Hmm? Oh, yeah” Darcy looked up at Jane and smiled, “I’m particularly thrilled to be celebrating in leggings and a sweaty t-shirt.”

Jane, outside of the lab and seemingly undistracted by science, focused her laser like powers of deduction on Darcy. “You don’t seem exactly thrilled?”

Darcy sighed, figuring that giving in now would save her hours of badgering from Jane. “Steve’s just a bit weird about the whole engagement thing.”

“D’you think he’s got a ring?” Jane asked excitedly.

“Not that kind of weird,” she said with a maudlin grin, “the kind where he pushes off any real discussion of things like living together or marriage or the Future.” The capital F was audible.

“So Captain America is afraid of commitment?” Jane asked in a sardonic tone.

“You know,” Darcy said slowly, “I have often though that that is exactly the problem. Steve Rogers,” she explained, “isn’t the issue. I mean, maybe he’s a bit old fashioned, but Captain America…” she paused, “well he’s got big secrets and big enemies and, you know, duty and honor and all that crap. For all I know, SHIELD has told him he can’t get married for national security reasons.”

“Don’t you think maybe you should just ask him about it?” Jane said reasonably.

“See, that _sounds_ all logical, but what if I ask him if he wants to move in together and he says no?”

Jane snorted, “Darce, after more than a year, that guy is still so head over heels for you that he is currently making eyes at you across the room like a lovesick teenager. I think you’ll be fine.”

+

+

“You’re miles away, Steve,” Pepper said kindly, and Steve jerked his attention back.

“I’m so sorry Pepper, I…”

She waived an articulate hand, “Please, I’m just hoping to get an inside track on the next engagement.” She nodded towards Darcy who was talking animatedly with Jane. He may have been staring.

He must have betrayed something in his expression, because Pepper asked carefully, “Is everything okay?”

He remembered thinking, way back at the beginning when most of their time together was spent in the ring, that the way she threw all of herself into a fight was incredible. He had wished for a long time that he could do the same, show her all that he was.

He really wasn’t sure that all that much had changed. The only difference was, back then, it was Captain America he was hiding from her. Now? He thought it was more about that scrawny kid from Brooklyn who couldn’t help from throwing himself into deep water.

He composed himself and answered carefully. “Just fine. I suppose that sometimes things just take a little longer than people expect when you’re…” he stumbled, “I mean, there are things that I…”

He could see understanding cross Pepper’s face and he could see the way she looked at him a little more like the human being and a little less like the public front. To be fair to Pepper, and to most people, he hid a lot of himself from a lot of people. And there were some parts of him he was still hiding from everyone. Well, from everyone who was still alive, anyways.

“You know,” said Pepper, “Tony and I have been together for six years and I was in his life long before that. I think a part of him was waiting for me to find out something that was going to make me leave. All this?” she gestured at the impromptu party, “this is about him figuring out that there’s nothing he has to hide from me anymore. And I know it was worth the wait.”

+

+

It was late by the time the party started to wind down, and Steve could see from across the room that Darcy was tired and a little bit drunk, so he readily accepted when Tony offered them a guest room for the night.

It felt incongruous, falling into expensive linen in their gym clothes. He tilted his head to smile at her.

“Pretty crazy night, hey?” he said.

“I don’t think I’ve ever had so many people subtly hint to me that it is somehow blasphemous that Tony Stark was settling down before Captain America,” she responded flippantly. And then, in the silence that followed, the words settled awkwardly.

“Are…people giving you a hard time?” he asked carefully. He missed sometimes, the way things had been so easy in the early days of their friendship. Now there were minefields that he hadn’t had to worry about before.

She gave him an odd little grin, “nothing I can’t handle Steve-O,” she said smacking him on the arm. And then, after a pause, “this isn’t a big thing we need to talk about you know,” she said firmly, “Tony and Pepper don’t have anything to do with us.”

Steve let out a breath. He wasn’t sure whether to feel relived or not. It wasn’t as if he didn’t picture spending the rest of his life with her, he was just decidedly uncertain that she felt the same way and didn’t want to push a conversation that could lead to uncomfortable truths. It was cowardly, and he knew it, but no enemy had every terrified him like the thought of losing her.

“I love you,” he said, and because he couldn’t help himself, “and the thought of you with a ring on your finger doesn’t scare me, Lewis.” It was couched in humor, but it felt good to say it.

“Oh yeah?” she challenged, but her smile was brilliant, “you sure about that loser?”

He grinned, bending to kiss her, quick and certain, “pretty sure beautiful.”

She reached over the edge of the bed and grabbed her boxing gloves from her gym bag, shoving them on with a grin, “what about now?”

Steve could real her expression pretty well by now, so he felt a low thrill of anticipation uncoil in his belly as he pulled on his own gloves, “bring it on,” he challenged with a grin.

On their knees in the bed, it wasn’t much of a contest to being with, so Steve let her playful blows land on his torso as he pulled her head towards him, mussing her hair and drawing out an indignant shriek.

“Oh you’ll pay for that,” she said, pulling herself free and launching herself at him, pushing him back against the pillows.

She rested, straddling his hips, her gloved hands holding his arms pinned to the bed. She shifted against him.

With a low noise, he tried to reach for her, but she pushed his arms back against the bed with a wicked grin.

“Uncle,” he said breathlessly, “you win.”

“You scared of me now?” she asked, rocking back to pull off her gloves.

“Shaking in my boots,” he said evenly, before flipping them over with an arm around her waist.

“But Steve,” she said blinking up at him with wide innocent eyes as she wiggled his gloves off his hands, “you’re not _wearing_ any boots.”

“Fine, shaking in my shorts then,” he grinned, bending down to nip gently under her ear.

“But Steve,” she intoned with mock sincerity, her voice breathy and low and she ran her hands under the waistband of his shorts, pushing them down slowly, “you’re not _wearing_ any…”

He cut her off with a kiss, laughing against her mouth as she opened willingly under him, feeling her own laughter vibrating under him as he shoved his shorts the rest of the way off and pressed against her.

He could handle a bit of uncertainty, he thought, if it meant having something this good in his life.


	7. The Future

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Hi,” he pulled a hand out of his pocket in a self-deprecating wave, “Steve Rogers. I’m absolute shit with beautiful women.”

“Steve is my red shirt here or at my place,” Darcy’s voice came from the bedroom as he was making coffee in the kitchen.

“The one with the buttons?” he called back, sifting through his memory to see if he could place it.

“Yeah,” she called back.

He grinned, “your place, slung over the bedroom lamp, last time I saw it.”

Darcy made a frustrated noise, stalking into the kitchen wearing an old t-shirt of his. “I really wanted to wear that one today.” She reached past him to snag the mug of coffee he had just poured.

“We can go by on the way in,” he suggested reasonably, “it’s not far.”

“You know,” she said casually, leaning up against the counter, her face pointed firmly into her mug of caffeine, “It would be a lot easier if we just moved in together. We wouldn’t have to go back and forth so much.”

Steve froze, his own mug of coffee halfway to his mouth. It wasn’t as if the idea hadn’t been brought up before. After more than a year together, living within a few blocks, their belongings were indivisibly melded between their two places at this point. But it had never really been serious. Over the last little while, though, he had felt the serious discussion coming. He had been trying to avoid it. It sort of figured that Darcy would just toss it out on a Wednesday morning though. She was unpredictable like that.

“Hmmm,” he made a non-committal noise, trying to defer.

“I’m serious,” she said lightly, looking at him quizzically, “why not? I mean, we basically live together now anyways.”

In Steve’s mind, there was a clear difference in what they were doing now and officially living together. He understood, he really did, that the modern world functioned differently than things had in his day. He knew that moving in with a boyfriend was pretty normal, people did it all the time. After the length of time he and Darcy had been together, no one would even blink at it. But for him, it meant a level of commitment that he and Darcy hadn’t really talked seriously about yet.

He was willing, _more_ than willing to make that commitment. But Darcy was a modern girl. She had studiously avoided the topic of marriage throughout their relationship. Steve was patient, but for him, things worked in a certain order, and moving in with a girl before she could even _say_ marriage was a little too out of order for him.

He sighed, this was a bit more conversation than he really wanted to have at 7:30 in the morning.

“Darce, I’m just not sure now is the time,” he hedged.

“Is this a 40s thing Steve?” she asked with a grin, “are you worried about soiling my reputation? Because after that time Tony walked in on us at the New Year’s party, I think that train has left the station.”

He grinned, blushing despite himself, “No it’s not about your reputation.” He said. And, recognising by Darcy’s stubborn face that he wasn’t going to talk his way around this one, he went on, “it might be sort of a 40s thing though. I just…” he paused, thinking carefully about how to word this. It wasn’t that he didn’t think Darcy was committed to their relationship as it stood. But it was an old sore spot, she worried that he didn’t trust her to stand by him. But it sort of _was_ about her commitment, because he really didn’t know what her thoughts on, you know, _forever_ were, because they didn’t talk about it. They made plans for the far future, he had already told Karen he would be at her wedding where Darcy was in the wedding party next summer, they talked about places they’d like to travel together, but nothing about marriage and kids and joint bank accounts. And really, in Darcy’s defence, there were some really good reasons why she might not want any of that.

“I get that it’s not as big a deal now as it was in my day,” he said carefully, “but I guess I could never move in with you while there was any chance that I’d ever have to…move out.”

There was a long and drawn out pause.

“Oh,” was all Darcy said eventually, “okay. I get it. No problem. I’ll just…I’m gonna run home and grab that shirt. You go ahead. I’ll see you at lunch, yeah?”

He could see her shutting something down, and he had really obviously not gone about this the right way. “Darce, I’ll wait for you…” he started.

“Naw, you’ve got the team meeting,” she said in a forced light tone, “Don’t worry about it.”

She had blown out the door before he could say anything else.

He didn’t see her at lunch. She texted a weak excuse about lab work that made a pit of dread sink low in his gut. He and Darcy didn’t fight often, for which he was profoundly grateful, because he really did not enjoy the churning nausea that a thought of a fight with Darcy always brought on.

One about their plans for the future? Double no.

A part of him that he didn’t like to examine, but one that always pushed its way to the surface every time he screwed up, thought that Captain America would never have messed the conversation up that badly. Steve Rogers, of course, screwed a lot of things up all the time. And sometimes he wondered if Darcy had ever really understood that part of him.

It was almost tempting to let her avoid him when she texted that she wasn’t feeling great and she was just going to go home to her place tonight. But then Natasha caught him looking down at his phone with what must have been a fairly dire look on his face. She raised an eyebrow at him in an eloquent question.

He sighed, “Darcy asked me to move in, and now she’s avoiding me.” He had gotten fairly used to just giving in and telling Natasha flat out what was going on. She was going to wheedle it out anyways and she generally had some reasonable advice.

“You don’t want to move in?” she asked.

“No, I do, but just…not if I’m ever going to have to move out.”

Natasha raised her eyebrows almost to her hairline, “were you planning on breaking up with Darcy?” she sounded incredulous.

“Of course not,” he said indignantly, “but she’s a modern girl, and I’m not sure moving in with someone means the same level of commitment to her as it does to me. We’ve never really talked about anything…official, you know?”

Natasha rolled her eyes. “Steve, you do realise that Darcy probably thought you were worried that _you_ might want to move out at some point, don’t you.”

“Oh,” he said slowly, and then “ _Oh_ ” letting his head fall into his hand. “I’m an idiot.”

“Yes,” said Natasha. “Go now.”

+

+

When Darcy answered the door, she was wearing the old ratty sweatpants she always wore when she was sick and her eyes were red rimmed.

“Oh Darce,” he couldn’t help but pull her into him. She let him passively, but her arms hung at her side. He stepped back at once when he realised she wasn’t responding particularly warmly. “I’m so sorry about this morning. I may have really put my foot in it this time.”

“No, it’s okay,” Darcy said in a small voice, “I’d rather you were honest.”

“But that’s not…” he let out a huff and ran his hand through his hair. This wasn’t exactly how he had wanted to have this conversation, but clearly he should have brought it up a lot sooner. So now it was.

“I realise now that it might have sounded like I didn’t want to move in because I wasn’t sure I’d want to…stay, but that’s not…I didn’t want to move in with you because I know that people do it pretty casually these days, and I am really really _not_ casual about you Darce. I want to live with you, of _course_ I do, but I would never presume that you were…that you wanted…” he sighed, “I just won’t do it until I know that you mean the same kind of commitment by it that I do.”

Darcy was watching him with wide eyes throughout his really awkward soliloquy. He was having a hard time getting a read on her reaction, which was not doing anything to calm his nerves.

“So…” she started slowly, “you’re not sure that _I’d_ want to stay?” her tone was even, but Steve immediately knew _exactly_ how badly he had fucked this up and winced.

“Well,” he shoved his hands in his pockets, looking at the floor. It was a sensitive topic. He knew it. But he had learned a thing or two about being in a relationship with Darcy, and he knew it was better to be honest than to be careful. “You never talk about…the future, you know? And I would never want to…push…” not since that time he had tried to push his way right past all her baggage by trying to kiss her before she told him who he really was. He had really learned his lesson on that one.

“Oh,” she said, and after a pause, “No, that’s…that’s fair. I can see how you would…how is it that we get ourselves into these messes?” but she was smiling, a half nervous smile, but it made him feel a bit hopeful.

“Hi,” he pulled a hand out of his pocket in a self-deprecating wave, “Steve Rogers. I’m absolute shit with beautiful women.”

She let out a low huff of laughter and took a step closer to him, biting her lip. “Steve, I get that I was pretty casual in how I brought it up, but that was mostly because it took me a solid two weeks to get the nerve up to actually say it out loud.”

“Oh,” Steve felt a slow grin growing, “but…why?”

“I guess early on I kind of figured that you, well none of you guys, could really have a lot of normal stability in your lives.” She started, twisting her hand nervously together, “so I get that, you know, white picket fences and 2.5 kids and a dog is probably not in our future. I don’t know what the rules at SHIELD are about stuff like kids and marriage and joint checking accounts, and you get enough shit from being Captain America, I didn’t want to create any more if you couldn’t have any of that…or didn’t want…”

“Oh,” Steve cut in with a slow growing feeling of… something. Something big and important and kind of incredible was creeping up his spine. He reached out to cup a hand behind her neck, pulling himself close enough to feel her warmth. “Fuck SHIELD,” he breathed low, dropping his forehead to press against her “I want marriage and kids and a joint checking account and a fence and a dog. I want that with _you_.”

“Yeah?” she asked breathlessly, her hands tucking up against his lower back.

“ _Yeah,_ ” he agreed enthusiastically.

“So, maybe we could start looking for an apartment?” she asked hopefully.

“Definitely,” he agreed, a stupid grin creeping across his face. “We’ve got a…a thing that we have to do this week, but it should be pretty simple. I’ll be back on Saturday. What do your Sunday plans look like?”

She smiled up at him brilliantly, “Ideally, they look like a two bedroom with ceilings high enough for your freakish height within walking distance of Sal’s.”

“Two bedroom?” he asked absently, “you already think you’re going to need to escape from me?” he was far more focused on the way her hands were pressing into his spine and the way he could feel her pulse under his fingers.

“Well I’m a long term planner, Steve-O,” she said, “and you never know who else might come along.”

He let out a breath, struck by the idea of it.

“Did I go one step to far for you there?” she asked gently, but not apologetically at all.

“No,” he pulled her closer, “but you are officially in charge in the event of a zombie apocalypse.”

She blinked at him questioningly.

“I like your plans, Lewis.”


End file.
